I have been locked away over the fast few weeks working like crazy to finish my first gingerbread house. It's the "Up" house from the pixar film of the same name. I love the film, very sweet and quirky. And the house has colors and textures that looked like a heap of fun to make. I used the plans from the amazing "Themodelmaker" at http://themodelmaker.net/flying-house-model-pixar-up/ I scaled the model x6, then I cut it out of paper to form a template. I then made a foam backed version so I could see where things fitted and whether I needed to make some adjustments. After that I made the gingerbread from a recipe that I thought was pretty sturdy (no eggs, or chemical learners just flour, molasses, spices, veggie shortening) - I made the recipe x 6. It was a crazy amount of dough. Then I traced the templates over the dough and cut them out. Baked the gingerbread off and then let it cool completely before I even attempted to put it together. Slowly, and I mean seriously slowly Josh and I put the house together (over a series of 3 days) and then I made masses of sugar paste decor for the house. This is what took a ton of time, you have to color it, shape it, texturize it (if you need to) and then let it dry for two days. Then came the assembly, which was the fun bit. I used Alton Brown's Royal icing recipe which
stood the test of time (and cement-ability). and that's it.
A fun, and yet epic amount of work, but I'm pretty pleased with the results! We are auctioning off the house at work and donating the money to a charity. So hopefully it works out!
A shout out to the awesome and incredibly talented 'themodelmaker' and Don Shank who's amazing pictures I stared at for three weeks, attempting to get the details right. Just a beautiful house (see Don at: http://donshank.blogspot.com/2009/08/fredricksen-house.html).
